WALKING THROUGH THE COMPOUND AFTER LUNCH THE next day, Cherry was encouraged by all the changes she and the others had helped to make in the little village of Ngogo. The inner walls of the native huts gleamed with their coats of whitewash. The flower seeds that had been planted in the dooryards had already begun to sprout, thanks to the hot African sun and the rich, black African soil.
The hospital and the day clinic were busier than ever. But Kavarondi and Sara had proved to be apt pupils, and they had taken much of the routine work off Cherry’s shoulders, making daily progress reports on every patient. One of Cherry’s chief responsibilities—and one that she didn’t feel she could yet pass along to the student nurses—was helping Dr. Bob take regular blood samples from each sleeping-sickness patient for analysis.
Sometimes, in the evenings, she gathered groups of the children around her on the hospital steps, or in front of Tomi’s fire, and told them stories—Aesop’s fables, Mother Goose, and tales from American folklore like Johnny Appleseed, Paul Bunyan, and Davy Crockett. Often the older people of the village would come up quietly and sit around the edges of the group. And now and then one of them would respond in kind by retelling the age-old legends of Africa. Since the tribes of this part of Africa had no written language, such tales as these were their only way of handing down past history from generation to generation. And from them, Cherry thought, she learned more about the real Africa, in terms of its people and its customs, than from any of the books she had read.
Today, as she rounded the clinic building, she heard the roar of a motor and the screech of tires. When she got to the front steps, she saw Bob and Jeff standing beside the jeep that had just pulled up.
“Look who’s here, Cherry,” Bob shouted. “It’s our old friend from Cairo.”
Sure enough, the man behind the wheel was Spiro Krynos.
“Good afternoon, Miss Ames,” the Greek said with his slight accent. “It is most pleasant to see you once again.” He stepped out of the car and offered his hand.
“We almost met yesterday afternoon,” Cherry said. “Out at the Nairobi airport when the men were chasing that lion.”
Krynos shook his head, a puzzled look on his face.
“No-o,” he said slowly, “it couldn’t have been me. I’ve spent the last two days up north and haven’t been in Nairobi for a week.” He smiled his friendly smile. “You must have seen someone who looked like me. Although I wouldn’t wish that resemblance on anyone.”
Cherry knew that the man was lying, but she couldn’t imagine why. Well, she reasoned, it was his business—although it troubled her. What had he received from Gus Fisher, in that briefcase?
“What brings you out this way, Mr. Krynos?” Bob asked.
“You may recall,” Krynos replied, “that I told you I was a dealer in pyrethrum. I came down here to look over the new crop. When I remembered that you were going to establish your hospital here, I thought to stop by and say hello.”
Ed Smith came up to the group and was introduced to the newcomer.
“Now that you’re here,” Bob said, “you may as well stay for dinner and spend the night. It might interest you to see what we’ve done.”
Krynos bowed and protested he did not want to put them to any trouble.
“There’s plenty of room in my tent,” Smith suggested, “if you can locate another cot, Jeff.” Jeff nodded.
“In that case,” Krynos said, “I accept with pleasure.” He looked around at the hospital building and the spruced-up huts. “It isn’t often that you see a village like this back here in the jungle. You people have worked miracles; and I will admit that I’d like to look around.”
“Feel free to wander around the place all you please,” Bob said.
“I’ll lead the guided tour,” Smith offered, “since all you people probably have work to do.”
Bob, Cherry, and Jeff went off to attend to their various duties. Krynos took his duffel bag from the jeep and carried it into Smith’s tent. Then the two of them set out on an inspection tour of the installation.
Night comes down fast on the equator, with hardly any twilight at all. It almost seems as though it is full daylight one minute and complete darkness the next. And the last light of the sun had just disappeared over the distant mountains when another car came roaring up the trail and into camp.
“This certainly is our day for company,” Bob remarked, peering through the gloom at the approaching headlights. Then a small truck rolled into the light that bathed the eating area, and stopped. This time it was Long Jack Robertson who stepped out of the cab.
“Hello, folks,” he greeted them, a big grin on his face. His khaki clothes were stained with dust and sweat; and the double brim of his wide safari hat sagged down just the way a professional hunter’s should, Cherry thought.
“I brought you some fresh meat for the pot.” Jack snapped a few words in Swahili to Tomi, who was stirring the coals in his grill getting ready to cook dinner. Broad-shouldered, muscular Tomi hurried around to the back of the truck and lifted out an antelope.
“Your cook will know what to do with it,” Jack said. He dropped his long body into a canvas chair.
“Jack, you’re a sight for sore eyes,” Bob told him. Then he introduced him to Jeff, Chuck, and Krynos. “I believe you’ve already met Ed Smith here.”
“No, can’t say that I have,” the hunter replied as they shook hands.
“Hmm!” Cherry said to herself. “What about that evening in the New Stanley?” But she didn’t voice her thought out loud. Here were two deliberate lies in the same afternoon. She had seen Krynos at the airport, and Smith talking with Long Jack in the hotel lobby. Krynos looked like the sort of man who might want to hide something. But not Long Jack, Cherry thought. He appeared straightforward. She was puzzled.
Long Jack was talking. “I’ve got a party in camp just about two miles from here, so I thought I’d run over and see how you were making out.”
“Gun hunters or camera hunters, Jack?” Bob asked.
“Camera hunters this time. Americans. A man and his wife. And pretty wealthy Americans too, judging by all the luxuries we brought along—bathtubs, a portable electric system, a refrigerator, and whole cases of fancy canned food.”
“It looks as if you’re having a vacation instead of a safari,” Bob suggested.
“Not so you can notice it,” the hunter said. “I’ve taken more risks with this camera chap—Porter is his name—than with most of the trophy hunters I’ve guided.” He thought for a moment. “Just the other day, for example, over on the Serengeti Plain. You remember it, Bob. We hunted there with your dad.”
“Well, Porter had said that he wanted a motion picture of a charging rhino. So that afternoon, cruising around in the Land Rover, we found one grazing all by himself. He was a big one, too, and he looked mean. We drove up to within a hundred yards or so of him, and my client set up his tripod. The old rhino got wind of us, and started swaying his shoulders and pawing up the ground. I stood just behind and a little to the left of Porter with my big double-barrel .460 rifle ready to shoot if I had to. My client began to grind his camera, and then the old boy charged straight for us.”
Cherry was listening, wide-eyed, to the hunter’s story.
“Then Porter spoke up, calm as if he did this every day,” Long John went on. “‘Remember not to shoot until I say so’ he said. ‘I want him to get as close as possible.’
“The beast was coming at us like an express train, with that hooked horn low and his little pig eyes squinting, and his weight making the ground shake. When he was about thirty feet away, I thought Porter had either forgotten about giving me a signal, or was too scared to speak. And I was just squeezing my hand on the trigger, when the old rhino skidded to a stop, looked at us for a minute in a sort of puzzled way, and then trotted off to one side as though he thought the whole thing was pretty silly.”
Cherry whistled. “My goodness! Do you mean he stopped charging, just like that?”
“Rhinos are odd beasts, Miss Ames,” Jack explained. “They do unpredictable things, and nobody knows what goes on in those strange little brains of theirs. Anyway, Porter was tickled to death about getting such a good picture. But I don’t mind saying the whole thing gave me quite a turn. I didn’t dare try to help my client with his camera equipment lest he see how badly my hands were shaking.”
While everyone laughed at Jack’s story, the hunter was looking intently at Ed Smith.
“You know, Mr. Smith,” he said at last, “I believe you and I did meet briefly in Nairobi a week or so ago. You’re a photographer too, aren’t you? And didn’t you ask me something about getting some safari pictures for a magazine?”
Smith looked sheepish. “Yes,” he said, “we did meet. But since you seemed to have forgotten, I didn’t want to embarrass you.”
“Sorry, Mr. Smith.” The hunter smiled apologetically.
Cherry felt a little ashamed of her earlier suspicion of Long Jack and Smith.
“Actually,” Smith went on, “I’d like to talk some more about a safari sometime. For instance, would I have to buy a hunting license if I wanted you to back me up with a gun the way you did Porter?”
“That all depends,” the hunter began.
Bob got to his feet. “I’ve got a few things to do before dinner,” he said.
“And I’d better look at Kavarondi’s evening report,” Cherry said.
Jeff and Chuck also remembered last-minute chores, and soon the hunter was left explaining licenses and other safari details to Smith, as Spiro Krynos puffed on a long cigar.
Listening to the radio news after dinner had become a sort of nightly ritual, and Cherry never ceased to be amused at the messages. When they were over, Long Jack took his leave, saying that he wanted to see his clients safely bedded down for the night.
Then Bob flipped the radio switch to “send.” When he got the operator in Nairobi, he said, “This is Dr. Barton in Ngogo. Will you please get a message to Major Welsh at the United States Military Air Transport office that I will have another shipment to go to the Abercrombie Institute in Washington, D. C., on tomorrow’s plane?”
The voice on the other end repeated the message and then clicked off.
“I wish,” Bob said, when he had hung the mike back on its hook, “that I didn’t have to take tomorrow off to go into Nairobi. I wanted us to begin the next series of Tryparsamide injections, Cherry. But those blood samples have to get off on schedule.”
“I guess Jeff or I could go,” Chuck suggested.
Ed Smith spoke up. “I was going to go to town the next time one of you did. I’d like to see how that latest batch of film I left at Keeler’s turned out. So I’ll drive your car in and leave your package at the field.”
“Good,” Bob said. “Just deliver it to Major Welsh at Eastleigh, but be sure you get it there before three o’clock.”
The next morning, as soon as breakfast was over, Mr. Krynos said to Bob:
“Thank you so much for your hospitality, Doctor. But I think I had better be off. I want to drive over to Nisi, on Lake Victoria, and I feel I should get an early start.”
“You’re welcome any time,” Bob replied, pleased.
“I can’t tell you how much I have enjoyed my visit with you. It has been a most happy coincidence.”
“A coincidence?” Bob asked. “I don’t quite…”
Krynos smiled. “Oh, I mean meeting the hunter with the curious name—what was it, Long Jack?—and hearing his adventurous stories. And also Mr. Smith, here, who has told me about the pictures he is taking.”
“I’ll go get your bag,” Smith volunteered. “I’m taking off, too, in a little while, but I’m going the other way.”
Ed Smith went into his tent and came out in a moment with the trader’s duffel bag.
“There you are,” he said, putting the bag into the back of Krynos’ car. He stuck out his hand. “Nice to have met you.”
Krynos said goodbye all around, and in a few minutes his jeep had disappeared through the trees down the trail.
About an hour later the photographer walked into the lab where Bob and Cherry were putting the tubes of blood specimens into a cardboard box and carefully packing them in cotton. He had a small canvas airlines bag in his hand. Cherry wondered if the bag held films.
“Well, I’m all set to go,” Smith said.
Bob wrapped the box in heavy brown paper, tied it securely, and addressed it. Then he repeated his instructions as to how Smith was to find Major Welsh at the MATS office.
“Don’t worry,” Smith assured him, “I’ll see that it gets there safe and sound.”
He carried the package out to Bob’s Land Rover, put the package and his bag on the seat beside him, and roared out of camp.
It was almost sundown when Ed Smith returned. “I got your carton to the MATS people on time,” he said, “and then spent most of the rest of the afternoon at Keeler’s. You’ll be happy to know that my pictures turned out swell. I airmailed them to the office in New York.”
As he was talking, Cherry’s sharp eyes spotted a dark reddish-brown stain on the sleeve of his bush jacket.
“What happened?” she asked curiously, pointing to the blotch. “It looks like blood. Did you cut yourself?”
Smith looked at the stain, and for a moment seemed at a loss for words. “Why—I—no—” he stammered. “I didn’t cut myself.” Then he smiled. “We were fooling around with developing chemicals in Keeler’s darkroom and I guess some splashed on my arm. And the heck of it is,” he said wryly, “it probably won’t wash out.”
That was odd, Cherry thought. Her brother Charlie was a camera bug, and had his own darkroom back home in Hilton. But she had never seen any developing chemical that was a dark red!